


woke up with an omen (tatted on my wrist)

by amrensjewelry



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Death Eater Sirius Black, First War with Voldemort, Gen, Inspired by Fanfiction, Post Hogwarts, but not really, maybe vague sirius black/remus lupin if you squint, technically, various brief references to other minor characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:34:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25703671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amrensjewelry/pseuds/amrensjewelry
Summary: in which a lot changes, but some tragedies are unavoidable.OR a very sad alternate ending to saudadeonly's death eater!sirius au, although it's not actually any darker than canon.
Relationships: Sirius Black & Minerva McGonagall, Sirius Black & Remus Lupin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	woke up with an omen (tatted on my wrist)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [someone to you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23673076) by [saudadeonly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saudadeonly/pseuds/saudadeonly). 



> so i wrote this in april after reading all of saudadeonly's fics for the thousandth time and crying (again). i couldn't help speculating on a possible, very angsty end to the ficverse, so this happened, and i've been debating whether or not to post it since. this whole fic will make very little sense without reading their's first, but this is canon divergent from both hp canon and her canon.
> 
> fic title from the song black wave by k. flay.

_Halloween, 1981_

Minerva McGonagall would not have said she was having a good Halloween, if asked, but she was not sure if she could say much of anything had been good that year. Maybe in many years. Minerva prided herself on her no-nonsense attitude, not prone to the dramatics of many of her fellow Gryffindors, and took joy in what she could during this seemingly never-ending war. But looking out at the students, merrily feasting on pumpkin pie and sweets, surrounded by the combined decorating efforts of the entire magical staff of Hogwarts, she could not help feeling the silences.

To an untrained eye, Hogwarts was as it had ever been, a haven for magical children of all backgrounds and beliefs, an escape from the tragedies of war fiercely guarded by Dumbledore and his staff. But war did not truly stop, despite their efforts to keep it from reaching these ancient halls, and Minerva knew all too well how many of her students, so bright, so promising, so very _young_ , were being dragged into battle during breaks, leaving to die for a cause that did not care about them the second they left these grounds.

The students were not unaware of this truth either, and nearly all had family or friends fighting and dying in the conflict. She could see it in their shoulders, tensed despite the revelry, in their twitching hands straying towards wands at loud sounds or unfriendly glares, in their sharpening tongues over supposed house rivalries that went so much deeper, in the straining smiles of those who received too much or too little news, in the lingering fear in the eyes of those who knew what their own futures held.

Unbidden, her eyes drifted to the Gryffindor table, seeing the phantom of the Marauders, those foolish boys, those loving brothers. Peter, with a job at the ministry and one for the Order on the side, still tagging along on James’ popularity, power, and ideals. Remus, risking his life monthly to support the same cause, with no acknowledgement for doing so would only make the people he was trying to save turn on him. Always so tired now, always so sad, a silent discontent about him that had not been there before. James, now married with a son, in hiding. A natural leader, the embodiment of the best of Gryffindor, yet his edges were more jagged now, from the unexpected and awful destruction of an almost brotherhood. And Sirius, oh Sirius, so silently self-sacrificing, so loyal to his few. She only heard his name in fear or disgust now, usually followed by a snarled or sobbed “traitor”. She wished they knew, she wished she could tell them. She hoped in equal measure they never had a clue.

Lost in her musings as she was, trying to force herself into the present, to at least pretend for the students’ sake that she was enjoying this feast, if not for her own, she nearly dropped her goblet of pumpkin juice when a patronus materialized in front of her. One that had grown familiar to her in the last three years, the large dog warning her of imminent attacks and crucial information while to everyone else the caster seemed all too happy to partake in the violent events. Never before, however, had the dog appeared to her when she was not alone, within their agreed upon times, to protect both of them. Owls, floo, direct conversation all came before a patronus, which was distinctive and unheeding of its surroundings. Minerva’s heart skipped a beat, her hand already straying to her wand and body readying itself for a fight as the dog opened its mouth to speak.

“He’s going to the Potters’. Peter told him where-” and the dog fell silent, popping out of existence. The voice was as smooth as ever, but she heard the catch in his breath, the strain in his voice like he’d been recently running, fighting, or crying. Belatedly, Minerva looked up to find the eyes of staff and students alike on her, and the space where the patronus had just been. For all of the magic of Hogwarts, patronus messages were rare, especially as the casting and sending of one was nearly singularly done by Order members, and patronus messages which came from Sirius Black, who was firmly not an Order member, were non-existent. For a moment, Minerva allowed herself to hope that the messager’s voice was not recognized, but however slow the years felt, it had not been so very long since Sirius had walked the halls of Hogwarts itself, quite loudly, and he had only made a bigger name of himself since then. He was rather unforgettable, no matter where he went or whose side he was on.

Minerva paid no mind to the silence that lingered in the hall, or to the looks ranging from shocked to terrified on her students’ faces. To risk this many people hearing his message, it was urgent, and Minerva was nothing if not efficient and good in a crisis. “Headmaster-” she started, rising from her chair and walking towards the man who had already nearly reached her.

“I assume, Minerva, that Sirius Black had a reason for contacting you, and that the “he” in question, was Voldemort?” Dumbledore said as soon as they were close enough that their exchange would not be heard by the entire school. Despite his quiet tone, Minerva still heard her fellow teachers’ sharp intakes of breath as they heard Dumbledore confirm both the sender’s identity and his iteration of You-Know-Who’s name. Ignoring them, Minerva found herself suddenly grateful for the reminder that Dumbledore was also good in a crisis, quick to adapt and act, and so she simply nodded.

“I am afraid, then, that there is nothing I can do. Peter was the Potters’ Secret Keeper. Unless Sirius happened to overhear the location, I myself do not know where the Potters are,” continued Dumbledore. Just like that, Minerva’s momentary relief was gone.

“Oh, Merlin,” she managed to choke out. “I have to-maybe I can get him on floo-”

“I will do what I can, gather trusted members of the Order, but I am afraid we can only really react now. I doubt, at this point, Peter will be willing to assist us and inform the rest of the location, but I will try.” At that, Dumbledore gestured towards Filius, before turning towards the students to begin reassuring them with some words she did not hear, and truthfully she doubted the students did either. She was already following Filius through the door at the back of the hall into the teachers’ lounge, but she continued past him, rushing to her office and the fireplace within.

Her door opened before her with an agitated flick of her wand, a handful of floo powder sliding beneath her fingers in one hand as the other lit a fire. “Sirius Black,” she forced out, not bothering to try to keep her voice steady. Even now, she refused to do something so pointless and undignified as to beg out loud, but it did not stop her from repeating _please, please, please_ over and over in her head. Still, she was not surprised when there was no response. She tried to reach the Potters as well, but there was not even a connection to call through, an open connection to the Floo Network likely having been deemed too dangerous to maintain.

Minerva allowed herself a moment to fall apart, to imagine the worst-case scenarios, and then she pushed herself back to her feet, forced her back to straighten and her hands to steady, and strode back to the teachers’ lounge. Hopefully, Dumbledore and the Order had more luck than her.

\---

As Sirius raced through the streets of Godric’s Hollow, he could not help the awful laughter bubbling up in his chest. Oh, how he had been a fool. A seventeen-year-old so unsure of his own path, but resigned to it for the seeming inevitability, even determined to stay upon it in order to protect those he loved. His words to Professor McGonagall the day before his fate was truly sealed rang in his head now, his insistence that _This option predicts only my hurting….This option allows me to protect…._ How naive he had been, to think that he would be able to protect them when he could not protect himself. How blissfully innocent, how horribly stupid and selfish to not think of the people he would be required to hurt while in Voldemort’s employ. And there had been so many people, people whose faces and pain he would never be able to forget, who he would never want to forget, even if he could rarely learn their names.

And for what? What had he truly protected? His friends would never have been content on the sidelines, well protected, and he had known that, it was why he knew _he_ had to protect them, but in the end he was barely able to. Sure, they were alive, those most precious to him, but tortured and surrounded by death, and they were barely so many days. Days such as this one. Stupid, traitorous, cowardly Peter. Rarely in his service as a Death Eater had Sirius wanted to hurt, to use the Unforgivables, and it was a constant struggle to force enough intent behind his curses to perform them as expected of a Death Eater. But Sirius was sure that if he saw Wormtail now, he could have cast the easiest Avada Kedavra of his life. He would have already done so, but he needed the man to tell him the same information he had just spilled to his lovely lord, and James’ life would always be more important than Peter’s.

Pl _ease, please, please, don’t let me be too late. Please let this all be worth it. Please don’t let this all be for nothing_ , Sirius begged as he finally, finally reached the house, one that was lovely, but even as he watched blew outwards with the telltale cloying stench of dark magic, sending him flying backwards. _That was a green light_ , his brain traitorously informed him, even while he forced himself to focus on the fact that recent casting was better than nothing, because it meant that up until the moment before there had been someone to cast against.

Ignoring the lingering ringing in his ears and the faint stinging over back and arms that meant he had scratched himself as he fell, Sirius pushed himself up and ran into the remains of the house, vaguely noting the ripped apart protective wards in addition to the surpassed Fidelius Charm.

And immediately, he nearly tripped over James’ body, frozen in a way he recognized all too well as permanent, eyes wide behind those stupidly thick glasses, face set and determined despite his hand not even gripping a wand. “Oh, James. Oh, Merlin,” Sirius gasped, feeling the sob building in his throat, but forcing himself not to stop, to continue through the house.

 _Lily and Harry. LilyandHarry. LilyHarryLilyHarryLilyHarry_. Their names pounded through his head, a mantra of the people he still hoped he could save. His heart was beating so loud in his chest he nearly didn’t hear it, but when he was hit with a new burst of hope. Never had he been so very glad to hear a baby crying. _He’s still alive. And if he’s still alive, surely Lily is too_.

It was almost worse when she wasn’t, when her body lay alone in the middle of Harry’s nursery, in the center of the awful blast, Harry wailing behind her. Perhaps most unsettlingly of all, Voldemort was nowhere to be found. Sirius wanted nothing more than to grab Harry while Voldemort was seemingly absent, to sit there for hours with Lily and James, to apologize, to bury them, to chase down Pettigrew and kill him for betraying his friends and their _baby_ for selfish ambition and cowardice. But even as he stood there wondering which urge to follow, he heard the tell tale cracks of apparition. Likely, it was the Order arriving after his warning to McGonagall, too late but likely only having been unable to find the location until after James and Lily died, an oversight he had only realized after he had already left. The other option, that the apparition was Death Eaters, was hardly more appealing, and with one last broken apology to Lily’s body, Sirius apparated out of the cottage. Stopping only to make sure he was not leaving James and Lily’s son in the hands of Death Eaters, he apparated back to Grimmauld Place, silent at the late hour.

Leaning against the doorframe of the cursed house, never home, Sirius gave himself ten seconds to break down, ten seconds to mourn and drown in self-deprecation and guilt. After the ten seconds were up, he straightened his back, steadied his minds and his hands, and headed to the fireplace. There was no one else he could protect, no reasons left to stay. No information on the Death Eaters was worth anymore faked loyalty or blood on his hands, not when the information had not even been enough to save his first and best friend, the best man he had ever known.

Maybe, if he was quick enough, he could make up for some of the innocent lives he had taken over the past few years. If not, at least it would be over. Either way, he was done.

\---

Remus stared numbly at the front page of the _Daily Prophet_ , willing them to say anything other than it did. Article after article detailing the fall of You-Know-Who at the hands of the Boy-Who-Lived, celebrating the victory of the light. All Remus could see was James and Lily’s frozen faces, days ago so very full of life. Of all the days to be away on Order business, continuing his futile efforts to convince more werewolves to turn against the Dark Lord, apparently especially pointless now. He got home just in time to receive his invitation to an Order meeting, likely one of the last. There were likely still Death Eaters running around, but fewer than there were on Halloween, and none that required vigilante action to take down.

Remus was distantly aware of the fact that Order members were talking around him, voices caught somewhere between victorious and deeply grieving, all of them unsure of what to do with this sudden victory at such a high price, and distantly aware that he should probably be listening, but his mind would not cooperate.

Over and over again, his mind replayed that final confrontation with Sirius (always Sirius, never Black). The matter of fact _Peter’s the spy_. The hand twitching towards him, the casual offering of his own memory, his mouth forming the words _That was ours_ , uncharacteristically unsteady words. The exhaled _You don’t know me anymore, Remus_ , and the way Remus had agreed. Maybe he didn’t. But thinking back, so much of Sirius had stayed the same, and maybe that was why it had been so jarring. So casually sure of himself, of what he said and did, the same way of moving, like he himself was the smoke he so greedily breathed in. How very un-Death Eater like it had been, smoking the same muggle cigarettes he always so stubbornly had. Sirius had, up to that last time, held onto some parts of himself so stubbornly it was no wonder he was a Gryffindor in a house of Slytherins, while still throwing other parts of himself openly at you so boldly that you almost didn’t notice his vulnerability. The same boy he had been, maybe, sometimes, separated from the friends that made him whole and drowned in the dark.

Suddenly, Remus found himself so unbelievably furious, the type of anger he rarely let overcome him, hot and cold all at once, desperate to lash out, to run as he only could as a wolf, (not that he would ever tell anyone he liked any part of the transformation, but he thought, was almost sure, that Sirius knew), to let go of his carefully honed restraint and just let his emotions drive him. He fiercely reminded himself to keep it under control, to stay passive, unthreatening, unassuming, even amongst allies, as he felt magic crackle under his skin.

 _I warned you!_ he wants to scream. _I offered you the memory and begged you to listen. You knew, you could’ve known, you could’ve stopped this._ For all the Order’s talk of being Light, of being smarter, kinder, better, they had seen a Death Eater’s memory in the hands of a werewolf and refused to listen. Peter had always been an excellent liar when properly motivated, and when poor, sweet, unassuming Peter insisted the memory must be tampered with, some sort of twisted revenge, a ploy to get to the Potters, _they had believed him_. Peter was the only one who could give them the Potters’ location, and he refused to do so, for their “safety”, and thus the family in question, the ones most likely to believe Remus, had not even been consulted on whether their secret was safe. For trusting the wrong friend, they had died. No, actually, for the rest of the Order’s trust in the wrong friend, even with proof, they had died. Needlessly, pointlessly, violently.

And now they were all gone. James and Lily, killed together. Peter, a traitor. And Sirius, stupid Sirius, who he wanted to say he wished dead since the first time he saw him in Death Eater robes, but never could.

Honestly, Remus was impressed. He was pretty sure all of Britain was impressed, actually. An article had appeared in the morning’s _Prophet_ , without the knowledge or consent of any of the staff, titled “A Complete List of Death Eaters, in Case of Sudden Incompetence”, with hundreds of names listed, ancient ones belonging to the most noble and pure wizarding families in Britain, compiled in an achingly familiar script. Many of the names, however, were dead by the time the aurors got there, ruthlessly cut down one after another, many in their own homes, a bloody path cut through Britain. And at the end, Sirius Black, who seemingly apparated from Lestrange Manor (after offering the same choice he offered the rest, to turn themselves in or die) back to Godric’s Hollow, just a few blocks away from the Potters’ former home. There, his hand performed one last Unforgivable, turning on its owner and casting an Avada Kedavra so powerful the green light was spotted by the Aurors still at the Potter house.

Remus had no idea what to do with this information. Sirius, his best friend, his true love, the man who betrayed him worse than anyone ever had or could. Sirius, who had tried to save them, who had turned on the Death Eaters just as ruthlessly and effectively as he had turned his back on the Marauders. _Oh, Sirius_.

So, for now, Remus sat with the Order, anger and grief rumbling beneath a surface, forcefully held there, pushed so far back Remus barely let himself feel anything at all. It was so much easier that way. Merlin, he needed a drink. He needed a lot of things.

 _Next steps_ , he heard someone say. He barely choked back delirious laughter. There were no next steps for him. He thought he might sit here forever, staring at the grains of wood in the table, at this damning newspaper, unseeing of those he might have called friends. Let the world go on. That was what he fought for, this was what he wanted. He just didn’t think he would be able to go on with it.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :) kudos and comments much appreciated. my tumblr is @natalieshieldss.


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